Neuroscience News

Hiroyuki Kato, PhD, assistant professor of Psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine and a member of the UNC Neuroscience Center, has been awarded a grant from the Whitehall Foundation. He will receive
$225,000.00 over three years to study the mechanisms underlying spectro-temporal integration of sounds in our brains.

UNC Neuroscience Center's Director, Mark Zylka, was one of three professors from UNC-Chapel Hill, and among 396 new fellows in total, who were recognized by their peers for their distinguished efforts to advance science and its applications.

The Jacob P. Waletzky Award is given to a young scientist (within 15 years of his/her PhD or MD degree) whose independent research has led to significant conceptual and empirical contributions to the understanding of drug addiction.

In a new study published in Cell Stem Cell, UNC School of Medicine neuroscientist Juan Song and colleagues discovered a long-distance brain circuit that controls the production of new neurons in the hippocampus. This story is featured as the Cover Story in the current issue of Cell Stem Cell.

Graham Diering, PhD, announced as a finalist for the 2017 Eppendorf Science Prize for Neurobiology. The prize winning essay on synaptic plasticity during sleep is published in the Oct. 27, 2017 issue of Science. Graham is a new faculty member in Cell Biology & Physiology and will continue his work on molecular mechanisms by which sleep supports cognitive function.

Garret Stuber, PhD, received an NIH Merit Award for his NIH grant to study midbrain neural circuits that orchestrate cue-reward associations. Merit awards provide long-term, stable support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. This grant, which is funded by NIDA, provides stable support for this project for 10 years.

The axon guidance cue netrin-1 and its receptor DCC promote axon branching in developing cortical neurons. In this study, we detail a novel molecular mechanism by which the brain-enriched E3 ubiquitin ligase TRIM9 orchestrates multimerization of DCC, requisite activation of FAK and Src family kinases, and increases in exocytic vesicle fusion, all during netrin-dependent neuronal morphogenesis. We are the first to show that non-degradative ubiquitination of a receptor alters kinase activation and signaling pathways during morphogenesis.

The focus of this grant is to illuminate a novel mechanism for dendritic spine pruning in the mammalian neocortex by immunoglobulin (Ig)-class cell adhesion molecules and secreted Semaphorins. The overall goal is to identify mechanisms that govern synaptic connectivity in the mammalian neocortex, and to elucidate how their deficiency contributes to abnormal brain wiring relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders.

The MIRA (Maximizing Investigators' Research Award), awarded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, provides flexibility for investigators to pursue innovative and important research directions as opportunities arise.

Microcephaly is a hallmark of Angelman syndrome (AS), a debilitating neurodevelopmental disorder that results from loss of function of the HECT domain E3 ubiquitin ligase, UBE3A. However, until recently, the underlying causes of slowed brain growth in individuals with AS had gone unstudied, resulting in significant gaps in understanding of the pathogenesis of the disorder.

Spencer Smith, PhD, was awarded the highly prestigious 2017 Philip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. Established by Philip Hettleman in 1986, the award recognizes four highly promising faculty members at Carolina. The recipients will be given a $5,000 stipend and will receive recognition at the UNC Faculty Council meeting.

An antenna-like structure on cells, once considered a useless vestige, appears to be important for proper brain development in mammals and when impaired can cause defects in the brain’s wiring similar to what’s seen in autism, schizophrenia, and other neuropsychiatric disorders. In lab experiments, UNC School of Medicine scientists prevented these wiring defects by restoring signaling though these antenna-like structures called primary cilia.
The study was published on August 7, 2017 in Developmental Cell.

In the study published July 6th in the journal Neuron titled, "Network-level Control of Frequency Tuning in Auditory Complex", Kato et al. found a neuronal network basis for how our brain precisely represents the external world.

"In a new study, Emerson et al. show that brain function in infancy can be used to accurately predict which high-risk infants will later receive an autism diagnosis...These findings must be replicated, but they represent an important step toward the early identification of individuals with autism before its characteristic symptoms develop." (http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/393/eaag2882)

In the journal Cancer Research, UNC Lineberger researchers led by Neuroscience Center member Timothy R. Gershon, MD, PhD, report in the latest in a series of attempts to shut down the energy production machinery in medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children. The findings may help researchers identify a suitable therapeutic target within the sugar metabolism pathway, and provide clues to a scientific mystery surrounding the confounding way that some cancer cells get energy from sugar.

UNC undergraduate Austin Ludwig works at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities to play a role in autism research he hopes will help millions of people, perhaps even his younger brother.